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In Biathlon, War Veteran Revels in Latest Challenge

As a boy growing up in California and then Texas, Andy Soule was not much of an athlete.

“He liked to play Legos and draw and those kinds of things,” recalled his mother, Debbie Soule. He did not take to Little League or soccer. In high school, Soule ran track and cross-country, making the varsity team in high school and winning a few medals. But “he wasn’t a star by any means,” his mother said. “He was just a member of the team.”

Soule, who is 29, is now a bronze medalist. He was third in the 2.4-kilometer, or 1.49-mile, pursuit sitting biathlon event Saturday, becoming the first American to win a medal at the Paralympic Games in Vancouver and Whistler, British Columbia, and the first American in history to win a medal in biathlon. He placed fourth Wednesday in the 12.5-kilometer, or 7.76-mile, sitting event and shot perfectly, hitting all 20 of the targets during the race.

Soule’s journey to the Paralympics began in 2005. Two months after he was deployed to Afghanistan with the Army, an explosive device went off under the truck in which he was riding. Both of his legs were later amputated above the knee.

While recovering at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Soule threw himself into athletics, sampling sports like fencing and sitting volleyball. During a handcycling event in San Antonio, Soule said, he met Marc Mast, who ran a training program for disabled skiers in Idaho.

“He felt that I had potential to be a good Nordic sit-skier, based on seeing me handcycle,” Soule said. “I couldn’t be a soldier, certainly not in the infantry anymore. I needed something new to challenge me.”

Soule entered the Army in 2002, motivated by the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11. He also felt lost at Texas A&M, where he was a junior. “I was burned out on college,” he said. “I wasn’t doing well.”

Biathlon was a good fit because it combined an endurance sport and shooting. Soule grew up visiting a shooting range with his father, who is retired from the Air Force, and felt comfortable with a rifle. Paralympic biathletes and cross-country skiers who do not have the use of their legs race in special chairs attached to skis.

Soule accepted Mast’s invitation in 2005 and traveled to Sun Valley, Idaho, to attend a development camp for beginning skiers. In 2006, he moved there to train full time and quickly made his mark. Soule won a silver medal at the national championships in 2007, and finished in the top 10 in two World Cup races the same year.

On Thursday, Soule finished behind three biathletes from Russia, which so far has dominated the Paralympics just weeks after its team was widely thought to have underperformed at the Olympics. As of Thursday, Russian athletes had won 8 gold medals and 23 medals over all. The United States, which won the overall medal count at the Olympics, is in sixth place, with one gold medal and four medals over all.

Soule is also competing in cross-country skiing and will race in two more events. “When he was injured, I knew he would walk again, I knew he would have a normal life,” Debbie Soule said. “But I couldn’t even dream that he would do something like this. This is pretty amazing.”

A version of this article appears in print on March 18, 2010, on page B17 of the New York edition with the headline: In Biathlon, War Veteran Revels in Latest Challenge. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe